I love pizza. Love. Love. Love. My first real job was at a family owned pizza place. It was here, I learned to appreciate both the simplicity and the complexity of a good pizza. My family eats it at least once of week, sometimes more. If a new pizza place opens, I’m there. A couple of weeks ago, I found a recipe for Waffle Iron Pizza. I absolutely needed to try it. What a great new spin on my favorite meal. I started googling whether this would work and if it would be good, found that it seemed legit enough,
Sometimes, I pick a wine, then I pick a meal. It’s late and I’m tired. I just want to sit in front of the TV with a glass of wine and enjoy the rest of the night. Knowing, I can’t just have wine for dinner, I look for some quick options.
I find a loaf of Cibatta bread that really needs to be used tonight therefore I decide on Italian! The Al Dente Pasta is ready in 5 minutes and has a fresh pasta texture and flavor which I love. I try to always have several ingredients on hand at all times that
Bill loves Mongolian Beef. Whenever we go out to a Chinese restaurant, or grab take-out, he orders it. Several years ago, I found a recipe that tastes just like P.F. Changs’ Mongolian Beef. I tried it and loved it, but hadn’t made it in years. I remember it tasted great, but required a lot of dishes and extra cleanup.. As I write this, I’m starting to wonder if I am just a messy cook (my husband would absolutely support this theory, as he is usually on clean up duty).
If you are looking for a healthy low calorie option, this is not the meal for you. I did adjust the original ingredients to reduce the calories, but it is still would fall into the splurge category for me.
The original recipe called for flank steak which I’m not a huge fan, but I learned my lesson after the steak tacos and kept this option in. Most of the time is consumed by cutting the meat. (It might be time to invest into a better knife set). I coated the steak bites in corn starch and let sit while I made the sauce.
I used 1/2 the oil and 1/2 the brown sugar recommended (my recipe below adjusts). While sauce was thickening, I cooked the meat, again using way less oil than the recipe called for. Taking the meat out of the pan, draining it and putting back in seems like an unneeded step, but, it is important to drain off excess oil (and part of the messy step).
After that, throw the meat back in the pan with the sauce cook a minute or two add the green onions and cook until soft.
I served with white rice and extra soy sauce.
Rating: Great. The recipe had a couple extra steps (cornstarch and draining) as well as used extra dishes (making sauce), which made it more likely not a weeknight meal for me. Actual cook time was minimal, but required continual monitoring.
1½ lbs Slice Flank Steak - against the grain - ¼" pieces
¼ cup cornstarch
½ cup canola oil
2 bunches of green onions - cut in ⅓
Instructions
Heat oil in medium saucepan, add the ginger and garlic, stir and then add the water and soy sauce. Add brown sugar. Boil until thickened. Set aside.
Dust flank steak pieces in cornstarch. Let sit for 10 minutes. Heat oil in wok. Add steak and cook until almost done (2-3 minutes). Remove steak from pan with tongs or slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Pour excess oil from wok and add meat back to the pan. Add sauce to meat and heat through (1-2 minutes). Final step, add the green onions cook until soft.
It’s 6:40pm and I need a 30 minute meal. When I was planning my meals for the week, I knew there would be at least one night where Rachael Ray would come in handy. Tonight, we are enjoying 5-Vegetable Fried Rice with 5-Spice Pork, first featured in her magazine Everyday with Rachael Ray, back in November 2006 issue, and which I had pulled out and saved (yes, I am a recipe hoarder).
As I start pulling out the ingredients, I began to notice there are a lot of ingredients. I wanted to try my rice cooker that I only have used a few times before. I substituted water instead of chicken broth that the recipe called for. While the rice was cooking, I started to chop vegetables. Because the recipe called for shredded carrots, I used a grater while I used a nice to chop the rest of the vegetables! Now I notice a lot of ingredients are being used which correlates to a lot of dishes. After grating carrots, chopping red bell peppers, mincing garlic, peeling and slicing ginger scallions and the pork, I realize I’ve spent about 30 minutes and haven’t even started cooking yet!
I used a wok and 2 tablespoons of oil. Pork fries quickly, about 3-5 min. I scrambled the egg first before cooking, threw in the rest of the ingredients in and cooked another 5-6 min, added the rice and stirred. 45 minutes in total and done!
Lots of ingredients, lots of dishes, not 30 minutes. I would recommend pre-chopping veggies the night before to significantly cut down on time and cleanup.
Fun part of the meal was serving my mother in law with chopsticks! She ate every last bit!
Rating: Time consuming to chop, easy to cook and excellent flavor.
